Best Way to Cut Overgrown Grass

Everyone who owns a house with a garden wants to keep the lawn looking nice. It helps make your house look good and also increases not only its value but also the value of the neighbourhood. Regularly mowing your lawn also helps to keep it healthy so is less work in the long run.

However, sometimes you are not able to cut your lawn for some time as you have been sick or away from home. You may have just moved into a new house and the garden is already unmanageable. How do you easily get your overgrown grass under control?

Use the Right Tool for the Job

A bad workman blames his tools and all that, but how do you know which are the right tools. When it comes to gardening there is a myriad of tools and some of them all seem to do the same job. How do you know which ones to pick?

The first step is to take advice. If you don’t happen to live next door to a professional gardener, then you will need to look further afield. Find a good site which explains and reviews tools so you have some recommendations of tools to buy. Try looking at Trimmers and Edgers where they not only review and recommend the best garden tools, but also give advice on which tool does what.

String Trimmer or Strimmer

Many strimmers are advertised as being suitable for both strimming and edging. In practice, they don’t edge particularly well so you may find yourself looking for both a strimmer and an edger. A strimmer has a rotating head with plastic string which whirls around doing the cutting. If you need more heavy duty trimming, you should try a bush cutter which has a metal plate instead of plastic string. Some strimmers have plastic blades instead of the string.

What Will a Strimmer Do?

You may have overgrown grass now but hopefully, this won’t always be the case. You don’t want to buy a piece of equipment to clear your lawn and then never use it again. What jobs will a strimmer do around your garden?

Cut longer grass. This includes your whole lawn, or certain areas of your garden throughout the year. You may want to plant some bulbs in your lawn known as naturalised bulbs. This entails not cutting certain parts of your lawn until well into the spring.

Cut natural parts of the garden. It helps the wildlife if you leave certain parts of your garden to run wild. However, these do occasionally need trimming down. A strimmer will cut through nettles and other weeds with ease.

Cut areas you can’t mow. There may be some places in your garden that you can’t reach with your lawnmower. It may be because your mower can’t fit for example behind your shed or around heavy garden furniture.

Edge your lawn. Depending on the model of your strimmer, you may also be able to edge your lawn with it too. This keeps your lawn looking neat and tidy.

Once you have decided that you need a strimmer, which type should you buy?

Electric Strimmer

If you have a small garden then an electric strimmer will be fine. If the cable doesn’t reach you can always use an extension. However, if you buy an electric strimmer you will always be constrained by the cable. There may be areas of the garden that you can’t reach, for example, behind the shed or against the fence. If you are lucky enough to also have an allotment, you wouldn’t be able to use your strimmer there.

Cordless Strimmer

These are powered by a rechargeable battery and work well but you should bear in mind a couple of things. The battery should be good enough to strim your whole garden. It is a good idea to buy 2 batteries. This will be heavier than the electric strimmer as it has the weight of the battery.

Petrol Strimmer

These are far more powerful and last longer than the cordless model. However, they are much heavier and make more noise. You will also need this type of strimmer to be serviced regularly. Some come with a carry strap to relieve you of some of the weight.